


The Reflection of the Bottle's Bottom

by Luci_Cunt



Series: Removing Thorns [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, I don't know how long it takes for him to get to the olympics sue me I guess, It's Not Easy, Kevin gets sober, Mentions of Excessive Drinking, TW alcoholism, and heals, but it gets happy, like he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 10:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18892828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luci_Cunt/pseuds/Luci_Cunt
Summary: Kevin Day sobers up





	The Reflection of the Bottle's Bottom

**Author's Note:**

> So... I'm mad projecting, recently I quit drinking and it was fucking rough so obviously I'm going to make Kevin go through that process too XD.
> 
> I dunno if anyone will read this but I just love Kevin and I want him to be happy and healed so I wrote this for me and if you read it and like it I'm glad ;).
> 
> <333

Alcohol tastes disgusting. 

Vodka is like acetone or NyQuil, and whiskey is like molding oak. 

It burns when you drink it and it makes your head spin and once you drink it there’s no coming down from the high. Your mouth doesn’t work the way you want it to, you stumble, you wake up the next morning with a mouth tasting like an ashtray and a head full of cotton. 

But right after you take the first couple, your chest blooms with warmth and your mind clears. Laughter becomes the most satisfying feeling in the world and nothing means quite as much as it did while you were sober. 

Kevin quits drinking a month after Riko’s funeral. 

He’d heard quips, little remarks about how much he drank. But usually he was blissfully lost in the looseness of reality that vodka allows. 

Andrew mutters it bluntly, _“You can’t drink your cowardice away, you just lose livers.”_

Nicky frowns and furrows his brow in concern, _“Hey, don’t you think you’ve had enough for tonight Kev?”_

Matt and Dan hide the bottles after one too many. 

Aaron, Allison, and Neil just grumble about dealing with his hangover. 

Wymack and Renee give him pitying looks that makes Kevin’s heart ache too much to keep his brain anchored and not floating in whiskey. 

Riko didn’t even have a real funeral–no one went. Ichirou had his body cremated, and Tetsuji told the press he dumped the ashes of his nephew in an ocean, just like Riko had wanted. 

Riko hated the water. 

After hearing about Riko’s death Kevin felt a conflicting mess of grief and relief and panic and guilt and elation and it was all too much to sift through and sort. He drank until he couldn’t make heads or tails and the only thing that kept him out of the hospital was Wymack locking him in his apartment and pouring liquor bottles down the sink. 

The funeral was announced a week after Riko’s death, Kevin watched on the tv as Tetsuji explained his resignation and how the family had had a quiet funeral. He hadn’t even noticed it had been more than a day. 

Wymack stuffed him in a car–hungover out of him mind and only half conscious–and drove him to Betsy Dobson. She helped to show him he had options, support, help. That he wasn’t alone. It was comforting, and the leg up he needed to convince himself to quit. 

He was glad to have the team to help him, Renee and Neil were already mostly sober, Nicky introduces Kevin to virgin drinks and while it’s not the same Kevin is thankful for it. Allison quits with him, Matt and Dan congratulate him, Aaron raises a brow and Andrew gives him a shrug when he brings it up. 

It’s not like what they say it’ll be like. Kevin doesn’t know what to expect, Betsy told him people who quit after years of alcohol dependence and abuse can react poorly. Irritability, sickness–basically it’s not going to be a comfortable process. Matt and even Aaron–begrudgingly–share their own experiences with quitting drugs. Kevin tells himself it’s not the same because Alcohol isn’t heroin, or xanax, it’s a normal thing for people to drink. 

The first night it’s fine, he doesn’t drink, it’s a weekday anyways–his body is used to putting off drinking for games and exy and such. 

The next night is the same, he doesn’t drink again. 

The third night is a weekend, they aren’t going to Columbia because they have to travel early Sunday for a game on Monday. Kevin gets done with late practice with Neil, gets back to the dorms, eats a snack, and reaches for the bottle. 

Neil clears his throat and Kevin stops himself. 

But it’s started. 

He takes another shower, because little itches keep popping up all over his body and everytime he scratches one another appears. Then he goes to lay down in the bed and his mind starts. 

_Just a little drink._

_Just one._

He rolls over, chewing on his lip. 

_One little drink, that’s nothing, and it’ll stop that tight feeling you’ve got in your skin._

He gets up, and drags Neil and Andrew out for another late practice. 

Andrew isn’t pleased, neither is Neil, but they both come along and watch as Kevin runs himself to the point of exhaustion and the itching finally stops.

The next night it’s the same, he wakes up thinking about drinking, about how easy it would be to slip into the ease of drunkenness. 

He goes for a run. 

In class his fingers ache to be around a bottle. 

He clenches his pencil tighter, and later his racquet. 

His head hurts and everything is making him mad. The fact that everything is making him mad makes him mad. He doesn’t realize something’s wrong until he snaps at Renee and even Wymack tells him to run laps and cool down. 

He runs laps. And shoots shots at Andrew’s goal until his arms ache as much as his chest. He drinks water like it will magically turn into alcohol and can’t stop thinking about drinking. 

Matt and Aaron recognize what’s happening, Matt assures him it does get better, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

The next couple of nights are spent sleepless and with Kevin covered in sweat.

_One drink, one little sip, just enough to warm me up._

He goes to Wymack, Wymack makes him a smoothie at three am and dumps out all the whiskey bottles within view. They sit in silence at the table for a long time until exhaustion wins over Kevin and he passes out over the kitchen table–half his smoothie gone. 

Abby gives him advil, and explains “Rebound Effect” which hits him like a solid wall on the fifth day. 

He has four panic attacks in as many hours and very nearly gives up then and there. 

_I’m not cut out for this. I can’t do it. It’s too hard. I can’t breathe._

But he does get through it. He is strong enough. (He can breathe.)

Nightmares start, they twist and swirl around him. Riko sneering at him, blinding pain in his hand, Kevin being responsible for Neil being dragged away, Andrew’s hands around his neck and that terrifying rage, restringing racquets that seem endlessly broken.

But slowly–so slowly, it gets better. 

He doesn’t even notice at first, it’s been a miserable few weeks but one day he wakes up and goes for a run without thinking once of drinking. 

He gets back from late night practice and doesn’t even glance at the bottle on the counter. 

His head stops aching and his fingers stop twitching and one day Matt congratulates him on his progress. It makes Kevin freeze in his tracks because he did that. 

He made it through.

The grin on Wymack and Abby’s faces when Kevin shows off the shabby pin that Nicky made for him that says _1 Month Sober!!!!!!!_ makes Kevin feel better than he’s felt in years. It’s easier and easier and soon Kevin can’t remember exactly what made alcohol so appealing. 

Nicky makes him a new pin every year. Dan pins the one month one on the wall with the pictures of the foxes. 

Sometimes Kevin still gets the itch for a drink. After an especially rough panic attack, after the anniversary of Riko’s death, when Thea tells him she’s pregnant. 

But now Kevin’s found the confidence to deal with his problems and trust himself enough to be able to handle his life with both feet on the ground and his reflection in a mirror and not the bottom of a bottle. 

Kevin Day gets a _10 Years Sober!!!!!_ pin from Nicky and wears it when he goes to the Olympics.


End file.
